No Rest for the Wicked
by Titania Le Fey
Summary: Set of 24 hour excerpts, one unseen scenes in NY The timeline's a little changed to make it interesting, the other AU with Xena and the kids.
1. AU Snake

  
**Hour 1**

Snake grumbled every obscenity known to man as he shuffled into the bedroom. The day had been long, 30 hours too long. The shower could wait. He was too tired. The trail of clothes and guns started at the closed door and trailed to the far side of the bed where he haphazardly threw the patch on the nightstand.

"Shit" he groaned hearing it fall behind. Plissken slid under the covers making a mental note to retrieve it later. She was in a bad mood but the elbow to the side wasn't so bad when he found his face covered in dark hair, the cheek pressed to his shoulder and the hand absently trailing over the cobra on his stomach. It was soothing despite the tangle of hair that would annoy everyone, everyone except for Snake Plissken.

**Hour 2**

Plissken felt like his eyes had just closed when the beeping started. Slowly they opened turning to the security panel. The lime green pinpoint of light was replaced with a yellow pulse.

"Fuck!" Snake was out of bed, on his feet and in his pants before his eyes fully opened. Making for the door he couldn't remember where he left his guns until his bare foot came in full contact with the metal. It took all his self control to stifle the string of screamed curses as he picked them up from the floor.

He took the stairs quietly and made for the front door. Snake peered through the small window. Nothing. Curiosity got the better of him and he slowly opened the door.

"Jesus Christ" Snake stumbled back just in time to miss being run down by the deer trapped on the porch. His eyes rolled and he stepped back inside. His feet were frozen from the snow on the porch but the exhaustion was worse. Snake headed for the upstairs adding to his to do list for the next day.

**Hour 3**

He still couldn't get to sleep after being startled. "It was just a deer." He told himself over and over. It wasn't working.

**Hour 4**

The phone was vibrating incessantly in his pants beside the bed. He tried to ignore it but what did that matter he wasn't sleeping anyway. He dangled his hand down reaching for the pants and attempting not to disturb the woman whose leg was thrown over him. It didn't work but he had managed to get his hands on the phone.

"Yeah?" Snake was not awake, didn't even sound remotely alive.

"Get your lazy ass out of bed. You were supposed to be down here an hour ago. Have you forgotten something?"

Snake's brow furrowed at Carjack's demand. Something, what something? The gunfight. Snake groaned in no mood for that especially when he felt the hand running up his thigh but it was the faintest touch of teeth and lips on his neck that solidified his decision.

"I'll be there in a few minutes." Snake didn't wait for an answer as he snapped the phone shut and threw it to the floor. He turned gratefully into her arms and lips. Carjack could wait.

**Hour 5**

Snake growled at the patch just out of his reach behind the bed.

"Daddy?"

Snake looked up to see the girl peering from the door. Bingo! There was the answer.

"Babydoll, can you come here a minute."

She bounded into the room and hugged him. The energy was well beyond his own but he had learned to deal.

"You mind getting that for me?" Snake whispered pointing to the patch under the bed. His daughter got it with ease which was both a relief and disgusted him.

"Time for breakfast."

Snake had barely situated the patch over his eye when the tugging started on his arm. Sighing he got to his feet preparing himself for another day despite the last one not really ending.

**Hour 6**  
Snake squinted in the winter sun. This was worse than a hangover. He hadn't even drank and his head was pulsing out of control. Plissken glared at the traffic stretching out in a long line before him. The temptation to start shooting was ever present until he thought of the bang colliding with the pain already coursing through his head. He'd wait.

**Hour 7**

Car horns startled Plissken's eye open. Three car lengths lay between his Hummer and the car in front of him. He'd fallen asleep in the traffic again. Damn he needed coffee. The phone had been ringing almost constantly for the last hour. He didn't answer it. He was in no mood for Carjack's bitching.

**Hour 8**  
Finally he pulled up in the Jersey warehouse district. It was a good thing he was here for a gunfight because he really wanted to kill someone after almost 40 hours awake and two hours of bumper to bumper traffic.

"Are you going to be this late to your own funeral, Blue-eye?"

"Fuck you, Carjack!" He replied walking right past Carjack and toward the door. He wanted to kill whoever was supposed to die and go back home. He needed sleep.

Once the noise of cheering and gunshots hit his senses Plissken was wide awake. Nerves pulled tight as he sat in a makeshift booth near a side door. The coffee came, a cup at a time until the server got impatient and just brought the pot.

**Hour 9**

Plissken's eye narrowed moving between his opponent's eyes and hand. The draw would come soon. He could see it in the sweat pricking up on his opponent's forehead, shining beads of fear. Plissken's own hand stretched and flexed once more to the graceful curve of a gun hand.

The man's eye tensed and Snake grabbed his gun. It was up, one bang and it was over. Plissken didn't even glance at the man on the floor as he turned toward the bookie to collect.

**Hour 10**

Traffic. Always the fucking traffic. Snake was sick of the traffic. He laid on the horn making his way to the burm. As soon as he was in the clearing he slammed into overdrive and shot down the shoulder. His patience was gone.

**Hour 11**

The tension had relaxed once Plissken hit the roads northwest of New York City. Driving on those roads told him he was nearly home, to his bed and sleep. Snake took a slug of scotch from his flask and relaxed into the drive.

**Hour 12**

The couch was impossibly comfortable when Plissken sat down to take off his boots. The bedroom suddenly seemed too far away. This was good enough. He laid back resting his feet on the arm and pushing the soft cushions under his head. This was nice. Snake sighed letting as much of the tension as possible slip away.

No sooner had his eyes closed then a puppy catapulted itself from the floor landing full force on his crotch. It instantly doubled up Plissken into a fetal position.

"Sarge, you fucking bastard!" Snake didn't mean it but the pain and shock was too much on his frayed attention span.

**Hour 13**

"Daddy! Get up!" The voice came with a shaking so rough it almost pulled him from the couch.

"What?" Snake groaned opening his eye to look up at his daughter.

"Time for puppies to go to the doctors."

"Is it?" Snake blinked a few times trying to focus on his watch. "Shit!"

"Don't worry we gots them ready for you."

Snake smiled seeing the puppies already running through the house in harnesses dragging the leashes behind. "Thank you babydoll."

Snake sat up and tried to get his orientation and senses about him. "You want to get dad a glass of water?"

She nodded and ran off leaving Snake on the couch vigorously rubbing his face to wake up.

**Hour 14**

Snake sat on the bench, lips pursed in disappointment at the antiseptic smell. He hated it. His wife was leaning heavily on one side, his daughter on the other. Solan was enthralled by the TV leaving Plissken to try and wrangle the puppies alone.

How long were they going to have to wait? It only seemed longer given the fact Plissken couldn't take his eye off the clock over the reception desk.

**Hour 15**

Snake was back on the couch. The puppies were sleeping, out cold after the ordeal at the veterinarian. The kids were outside and he could hear the bath upstairs. Everyone was occupied. Now was his chance to get a few more minutes of sleep. Plissken took advantage of every second of it.

**Hour 16**

Dinner was nearly done by the time his wife had finished chopping the salad. It had taken months but they had finally got the hang of working in the kitchen together. The whole process reminded Snake of dinners at home where everyone helped out in some way. The reminiscence was broken by the clatter of shattering glass and then tears. Snake rushed into the dining room with Xena hot on his heels. The littlest of the girls lay sprawled on the floor with a broken glass. As soon as Snake knelt down she attached to him like a barnacle to the hull of a ship.

"Mys fingers." She wailed.

Plissken peeled her hand away to take a look at the small cut it wasn't bad but to a three year old everything seemed like a limb had been removed. Plissken scooped her up in his arms and kissed his wife gently.

"Could you finish setting the table baby?"

She smiled, one of her sweet loving smiles that said Plissken's actions had touched her inside. He always liked to see that look in her eyes. It made his pride and often his ego soar.

"Now let's go bandage you up." Snake kissed the tear stained cheeks and headed for the bathroom.

**Hour 17**

The kids were in the kitchen doing the dishes. Plissken was stretched out on the couch. His neck cracked and pain shot right to his eye. He gasped sharply but relaxed as the soft hands worked over the kink. Tension drained away leaving only a satisfying exhaustion.

"Honey. I ever tell you what a wonderful woman you are?" Snake mumbled it into his crossed arms trying to keep his heavy eyes open. He wasn't awake to hear her reply.

**Hour 18**

Snake felt like a rock, an unmoving bolder that was forever pinned to the place it sat. Deep sleep and dreams, the deprivation was finally being satisfied.

**Hour 19**

Plissken's eye blinked open trying to make sense of his dreams of being a rock. Once awake the reason was obvious. Armor was wedged between him and the couch, a leg tossed up over the bare section of his lower back. Snake smiled sadly knowing why she stayed on the couch. He shook the guilt and turned his attention to the fur pressed to his other side. He glanced up at this shoulder to see Rusty's face and his daughter's pressed close to it. Her arms were wrapped around the dog and Plissken's upper arm. The weight on the center of his back was accompanied by soft velvet. Plissken didn't need to look back to know it was a little girl there. A thick blanket from his mother in law was draped over all of them.

Plissken chuckled quietly when the wet tongue hit his face. His own dog was sleeping near his head and overjoyed to see its master awake. That only left his son. Snake turned his head to inspect the room. A warm, red-coaled fire burnt in the fireplace. Its soothing warmth and soft crackling almost lulled Plissken back to his dreams.

Finally, his eye found the boy curled in Snake's recliner with Daisy. Snake smiled to himself seeing the book crumpled against his chest. He was proud of his family and very content to have them all around, even if most had opted to use him for a pillow.

**Hour 20**

He had no idea how long he had been sleeping but realized sometime he had turned over on to his back. His eye took in the room, the kids were gone, so were the dogs but the house was quiet. They had left him down here with his wife. Snake grinned at the pleasant weigh on his chest. Even the feeling of the armor's metal work was welcome. Love has a way of making a man forget minor discomforts.

Unable to resist Snake let his hands drift over the leather and smooth metal before finding the soft bare skin that remained exposed. The feather touches brought a moan when the pressure increased. The sound went straight through Plissken's body. Well fed and well rested, his mind was turning to other needs.

**Hour 21**

She was still asleep. Plissken sighed reluctant to give up but it appeared the dull ache of his body would have to wait. Pulling her close he resigned himself to try and get some more sleep.

**Hour 22**

Plissken found himself awake, again, though it appeared sleep had done nothing for the condition of his body. He stroked her hair briefly before slipping from her grasp. Sitting was uncomfortable but walking was a nightmare. His body was stiff from how he had slept, some of it far more than others. Plissken grumbled as he poured a drink on the way to the kitchen. Food might help or at least be a distraction.

**Hour 23**

Snake came back to the kitchen more relaxed and thought perhaps he could use a bit more sleep. He scooted back under the blankets found his wife instantly attempting to twine her body with his. Shuffling and fighting with her for what seemed like an eternity he finally got comfortable. His wife continued to squirm on top of him. Her body rubbed back and forth rekindling the fire that Plissken had spent the last hour putting out. Plissken couldn't take it anymore and shoved her down beside him. At least if she wanted to wiggle around now it wouldn't torture him.

**Hour 24**

Movement brought Plissken out of his light sleep. He pulled his arms tighter around her waist.

"Where you going?" Plissken's eye lazily opened to take in the messy black hair and heavy lidded eyes.

She huffed in response to his question. Snake locked her eyes and started to roll them over winding the blanket around their bodies.

"The children…."

Snake quieted her complaint with a kiss. The children were sleeping and Plissken knew this escapade wouldn't last long. For all her disappointment the legs wrapping around his waist told him something far different. It was exactly what he was in the mood to hear. 


	2. Escape from NY

  
**24:00:00**  
Snake frowned at the cuffs giving them a half hearted tug. This whole thing was bullshit. Why did they need a whole bus full of Black Clad Devils to watch over him? Snake took count of 30 and the metal cage they'd locked him in wouldn't make escape any easier. Snake chuckled to himself. Instantly guns were up and pointing in his direction. Went out of their way to find the one's without humor too it seemed.

**23:00:00**

Snake sat on the cold metal table fusing with the chains. This one was smart and stayed beyond the chain length while he rifled through Snake's belongings. Plissken's eye narrowed to an angry slit as he glared at the bastard in his wallet, looking through the pictures, his pictures. He hated them all of them.

**22:00:00**

Snake cringed as he passed from the dark room to the blaring hallway. It was colder too. Murmurs about a meeting flooded his hearing as he came face to face with a sergeant in his birthday suit.

"Take him to the Commissioner."

Plissken frowned and glanced down. "Ya, mind if I get my clothes back?

The sergeant's eyes went wide as he looked down at the tattoo. The expression caused Plissken to smirk.

"Return his belongings." The sergeant snapped before half bolting from Snake's presence.

**21:00:00**

Plissken stood by the jeep chain smoking. The whole damned place was crawling with the black dogs. It stank of them and here Plissken was in the middle of it. His hand went up to his neck trying to feel the charges. He didn't feel a damned thing. Some part of Snake told him that it was another Ruse but then the logical part spoke up and reminded him of the consequences if it wasn't. The fact he was standing on a helicopter flight pad, next to a jeep with no cuffs told Plissken something and all of it was bad.  
Where the hell was that black belly driver?

**20:00:00**

Floor 50 couldn't come fast enough. The sick ding sounded and Snake half jumped from the dark coffin of an elevator. He walked toward the light streaming through the broken windows. The moon was hanging almost full over the city when Plissken stepped into the opening. His eye took in the shambles of New York City. He'd been here once as a boy. He could remember all the shining buildings and store front. Now it looked like Hell, just like the rest of the country.

**19:00:00**

Snake was taking the stairs as fast as he could. The meth helped with the energy but it did nothing for the stench. Bodies were in the stairwell. 25, the wall read and Snake had to slow before his heart burst. The next flight went by slowly giving Plissken time to look at the mangled parts of living things, some eaten, some decayed; others looked like they had been chewed on after the decay set in. The thought was like a sucker punch in the stomach. Plissken burst into a run taking the steps two at a time. He had to get away from the body with its face bit off.

**18:00:00**

Every shadow moved on the streets pushing Plissken's usual paranoia into the red. Worst of all was the fact that the shadows were not his imagination. He knew. He had seen creatures that might have once been human slinking around in them. It was like a house of horrors on the streets. Every shadow and turn had a monster looking to make a grab for him. Snake had never been much for haunted houses and a real life one had even less appeal.

**17:00:00**

Plissken backed into the darkness away from the mass of chaos in the streets. One of the men running had turned on another. Snake watched him come away with blood streaming down his chin. The other was laughing, laughing like he'd heard a good joke. Didn't he know his ear was bit off? Panic rose in Snake but it brought reassurance. Plissken at that moment knew for certain he wasn't crazy, wasn't tainted by the gas because that image of laughter was insanity.

**16:00:00**

Harold, that rat of a man, was taking his time getting ready to leave the library. Plissken found it nerve wracking and assumed Hellman knew. Snake made his way into the hall and paced the corridor. Light seeped out a cracked door ahead and gave him a welcome distraction. He approached noticing it wasn't cracked as he first assumed but over a quarter of the way open. Maggie was inside bathed in torch light as she brushed her hair. Plissken took in the sight with one long, slow glance. What any woman like that saw in Hellman, Plissken knew he'd never understand.

**15:00:00**

Maggie and Brain were still in the back arguing over Broadway when Plissken turned on to it. One look on the streets told him he didn't need their consensus. The road looked like one Vlad Tepes had waltzed down on his way to Turkey.

**14:00:00**

Plissken felt the arrow twist, grinding through his flesh to the bone. The man wanted a scream, a sound from the man he'd caught. Plissken remained in defiance. In truth the pain surging through his body was so intense Plissken didn't think he could have screamed even if he had wanted to.

**13:00:00**

Snake felt like he was flying. Somewhere outside of his conscious mind it reminded him of being shot in Siberia. "Just like Leningrad" Hauk had said. Leningrad, Siberia, here, was there any difference?

**12:00:00**

Pain surged. Plissken could feel it even unconscious. Suddenly it faded to laughter. It was nonsense for pain to turn to laughter. Plissken believed that until he felt lips on his. His eye opened to the dream. Her eyes we still blue as the ocean, hair white as the Russian snow. She laughed again, kissing the eyelid that should have been covered by the patch. Plissken began to wonder if he was dead.

**11:00:00**

Darkness came in and it was cold. Plissken wished the apparition back but she failed to come. Maybe he was the one who had let her down like he had the last time they had seen one another alive.

Tears pricked the corners of Plissken's eye. The Gypsy watching him nudged his companion and pointed.

"Prolly just the pain." The second Gypsy prodded the gash on the side of Plissken's head with his arrow. His questioning companion nodded and ignored the tears streaming from his eyes.

**10:00:00**

The pain plummeted down upon Plissken's sleeping brain. Pain like he'd never imagined. His head pulsed a double unison between his eye and temple. The duo was drowned by excruciating agony. Someone was tearing out his quadricep. No other explanation could be for the searing sting piercing his thigh.

**09:00:00**

Plissken thought he heard something. It reminded him of an alarm clock you try to ignore when you had a late night and needed to get to work. It muffled and then spiked to a tone reminiscent of a fog horn. It did the trick. The fog in Plissken's head began to clear.

**08:00:00**

Plissken struggled to keep conscious. At least now he could ignore his eye, his head, even his leg, all for the price of his ribs feeling crushed. Some deal. Next his neck would blow out and it would all be better. His pessimistic thoughts were cut by cold metal shoved against his arm. A trash lid. At first it didn't make sense but then he saw the club swung up on the ropes. Maybe he wouldn't have to worry about the explosives. Plissken smiled thinking of Hauk's smug expression fading when he learned his cheap tricks hadn't been given the chance to killed him. That was a satisfying thought.

**07:00:00**

Snake hopped up the stairs like a lame kangaroo. Willpower wasn't what was driving him. It was the desire to strangle Harold for making him climb these damned stairs. Why couldn't he have waited and took his time so Plissken could have strangled him down here and by-passed the stairs.

**06:00:00**

The stairs again. Plissken stared down them with disgust. For one brief moment he hated them more than Hauk. That thought quickly changed when his eye set on the time clocked strapped to his wrist. No, he hated them almost as much as he hated Hauk but resolved to forgive the stairs if they gave him an opportunity to toss Hauk's flailing body down a few flights.

**05:00:00**

The little Jap car in the lobby was like a vision of heaven. No more walking. Plissken couldn't take anymore walking.

**04:00:00**

Snake popped the tape out of the deck while he drove full throttle down the road. Cabbie was complaining about his speed but Plissken's mind was caught on the tape. Iodine bombs? The Commies were about to blow the fucking world up with table salt. Of all the insane things Plissken had heard and seen over the past hours that took the top. He couldn't imagine anything crazier then table salt bombs.

**03:00:00**

Plissken hobbled up on the table once again naked on a metal table in a black belly hive. Least this time they had foregone the chains. Much to his surprise a pretty girl came in and announced she was Cronenberg's assistant. Snake smiled at her even through the pain and especially when she handed over the painkillers.

"Nice tattoo." She commented as she examined his head where the tire iron had come down.

"Thanks baby." He replied through pain clenched teeth.

"Bet you tell all the girls that." She smiled pleasantly and Snake felt a bit of relaxation. She wasn't half bad. Maybe she wasn't even a cop. There were still civilian doctors out this way.

**02:00:00**

Plissken stood in the bunker doorway, fed, newly bandaged and experiencing much less pain. His hand jiggled the bottle in his pocket. She'd loaded him up with a stock of medical supplies including enough painkillers to keep a horse unconscious for weeks. One more reason he had to love women.

**01:00:00**

Plissken drove at a good pace toward the south looking for a safe place to sleep. In the back of his mind he regretted having to forego the president's expression when the tape came on. Suddenly, Plissken realized it was on TV maybe someone had recorded it. The thought curled a devious smirk into Plissken's expression. That would certainly be worth tracking down. 


End file.
